Cheers for Charlie Hebdo

I am so impressed with the editors of Charlie Hebdo for coming up with their latest cover. I love their commitment to free speech and their insistence on reason. Bravo! I don't see anything insulting about it, and in fact it illustrates the point that most of the muslim world -- even the prophet! -- would disagree with the violent attacks in Paris. It's a message of solidarity and unity.

People who are offended completely miss the point. I don't get the controversy.

I really wonder about our species sometimes. The world seems to be slip-sliding into a religious abyss, at a time when -- if anything -- we ought to be rising above the feudal thinking perpetuated by fundamentalist religion. Here's another example -- the doctored photo in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper that removes female world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, from the Paris march of unity. So ridiculous!

And needless to say, we see craziness from fundamentalist Christians almost every day, at least in U.S. news.

On the milder domestic front, I cleaned up the front driveway yesterday. A disconcerting amount of leaves and trash had accumulated in the parking space below our flat -- a parking space that isn't even ours -- so I got out there with a bag, raked everything into a pile and bagged it up. Then I got to thinking about the leaves, which are good for mulch and no doubt contained lots of critters, so I took the bag into the back yard, dumped it out by the fence and threw away just the trash. We can probably use the leaf mould when we garden in the spring, and the critters can continue to enjoy it for now.

I am temporarily restraining Dave from grocery shopping. After our dinner party, we have enough leftovers in the house to feed Sherman's troops. I've also temporarily cut out my nightly dish of ice cream in order to eat the ocean of candy that we were given for Christmas. A couple of chocolates after dinner is about all the dessert I need. I don't mean to complain -- we are, after all, very lucky -- but holy cow, we have a lot of food lying around!

(Photo: A couple of pairs of shoes on a wall on our street. It seems to be a thing in London to set out your children's too-small shoes for others to take. I see them all the time in my walks around town.)